Goodbye, Convergence

Law360, New York (January 23, 2012, 1:32 PM EST) -- Regulatory convergence once seemed inevitable. Throughout the 1990s, antitrust practitioners heralded the growing similarity between the competition regimes in the United States and the European Union.

But it is increasingly difficult to find a basis for such optimism, at least when considering the rules governing single-firm conduct. Multinational companies operating in both jurisdictions are confronting regulatory conflicts that put at risk policies and practices that long have been lawful in the United States.

A jarring example of this conflict arose last month when the European Commission...